That was the Bread Pudding DANCE! They're looking for the Bread Pudding RECIPE!!

Well never fear it is here!

First a bit of history about where bread pudding came from. Ancient peoples from prehistoric times enjoyed many kinds of both sweet and savory puddings. Food historians generally credit the beginnings of bread pudding to thrifty cooks who didn’t want to waste stale bread and as a result it was common practice to use stale or hard breads in a variety of different ways...including edible serving containers like Medieval sops, foccacia, stuffing or forcemeat, special dishes, like French toast and thickeners or more commonly known today as puddings. Bread pudding recipes during the 19th century were often published in recipe books under the heading "Invalid cookery."

"It is safe to assume that from the very distant past cooks have sometimes turned stale bread into a sweet pudding, if only by soaking it in milk, sweetening it by one means or another, and baking the result. The addition of some fat, preferably in the form of butter, and something like currants is all that is needed to move this frugal dish into the category of treats, and this is what has ensured its survivial in the repertoire, even on cooks who never have stale bread on their hands...The likely history of the pudding can be illuminated by looking back at medieval sops and at the medieval practice of using a hollowed-out loaf as the container for a sweet dish...an Egyptian dessert which bears a marked similarity to bread and butter pudding, and which was originally a simple dish or rural areas...is called Om Ali' and is made with bread...milk or cream, raisins, and almonds."
---The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson (p. 103)

Recipes for bread pudding have changed through the ages:

A bread pudding

"Cut off all the crust of a Penny white loaf and slice it thin into a quart of new milk, set it over a chafingdish of coals, till the bread has soaked up all the milk, then put in a piece of sweet butter, stir it round, let it stand till cold, or you may boil your milk, and pour over your bread, and cover it up close, does full as well; then take the Yolks of six eggs, the whites of three, and beat them up, with a little rosewater, and nutmeg, a little salt, and sugar, and if you choose it, mix all well together, and boil it half an hour."
---The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, (1747), p. 109.

A Baked Bread Pudding

Take a stale five cent loaf of bread; cut off all the curst, and grate or rub the crumb as fine as possible. Boil a quart of rich milk, and pour it hot over the bread; then stir in a quarter of a pound of butter, and the dame quantity of sugar, a glass of wine and brandy mixed, or a glass of rose water. Or you may omit the liquor and substitute the grated peel of a large lemon. Add a tablespoonful of mixed cinnamon and nutmeg powdered. Stir the whole very well, cover it, and set it away for half an hour. Then let it cool. Beat seven or eight eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the mixture after it is cold. Then butter a deep dish, and bake the pudding an hour. Send it to the table cool."
---Directions for Cookery in its Various Branches, Miss Leslie (1849) p.299.

There are a million (at least) ways to make it. It varies by regions of the world, by continents, by country and even by state and city and individual neighborhoods.I do know this one is very easy to make, and really good. Here's our family recipe from the traditional annals of my mother-in-law's delicious cooking.

Bread Pudding

Bread pudding is made as much by "feel" as it is by following directions. For instance, the number of slices of bread used will vary depending on the type of bread. Once you've made it a few times it's very simple!

Combine eggs, salt, and sugar. Add milk and vanilla, and then bread pieces. Add cinnamon and nutmeg last. Pour into 1 1/2-qt. baking dish. You can bake it for 2 hours in 300º oven. Or, the key to a making a bread pudding with the custard on the bottom is to cook it in a double boiler where the bread rises to the top, leaving a custard bottom. You will know when the bread pudding is done when the color is golden brown and the pudding has swollen in the casserole dish. Like a quiche, it will collapse as it cools.

"To make bread pudding an oven is really necessary - you can't make it very well in a pot over a fire. And the oven needs to be in the home - and very few homes had ovens of any type until the 18th century. In cultures where bread was primarily baked by a professional bakery - as in France etc. - homes did not have 'ovens'. Puddings of all types were very popular in England. Bread pudding most likely originated there in the late 1600s."
(Food Facts & Trivia:www.foodreference.com/html/fbreadpudding.html )

Most ideal for the winter season, as it is best served steaming hot with a dash of alcohol, bread pudding is a delightful dessert incorporating old bread chopped up into cubes, mixed with various other ingredients (in Mexico they even include cheese) depending on the recipe, and baked to loving perfection until it's somewhere between the consistency of a half-baked loaf of bread and a slightly crusty pudding.

In recent years, almost every time I find a new restaurant, I check out their bread pudding. It's always served differently. Sometimes on top of ice cream, sometimes with yogurt poured over it. Sometimes berries, slices of apple, raisins, or other fruit are incorporated. Sometimes a simple icing is put over it and sometimes a thick, delicious bourbon sauce is used. Sometimes you can taste the eggs. Sometimes it's like putting a mouthful of spices in your mouth, but always it's an adventure.
A must for the holiday season, or any time one needs a real pick-me-up. When done right, eating well-made bread pudding is like swallowing a bear hug. It's also great with coffee.

Bread Pudding is like stuffing or marinara sauce. Every family, chef, restaurant and cookbook has its own variation. Certain ingredients are at the core of long standing arguments over whether they should or should not be incorporated into the recipe. Raisins, no raisins, rum sauce, bourbon sauce, ice cream, no ice cream. There likely are as many recipes for bread pudding as there are stars in the night sky.

When I first moved to Boston I worked at The Ground Round in the Pru. Now, they made some kickass bread pudding with a Jack Daniel's sauce and topped it with ice cream. LOOK OUT! It was one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. Ever.

Anyway, that Ground Round is long gone, having lost its lease there in the building of the new wing of the Prudential Center that has forever changed the Boston skyline. I could go to one of the other Ground Rounds nearby the next time I find myself in Boston and have myself a bread pudding; Cleveland Circle, Fresh Pond and I believe there's one in Arlington, (or is the Fresh Pond the one in Arlington? I was never sure) but it wouldn't taste the same as it did when me and the girls would sneak out back with the order we had "accidentally" rung in and gobble it down as quick as we could. I doubt this is the exact recipe they use, but after many attempts of my own, it comes pretty close.